HAVE I THE RIGHT?
THE ART OF THE DREADED MUSHROOM
AND HOW BEST TO AVOID IT
What�s he on? I hear you say, he�s surely flipped. But no my colleagues, it is my aim to make you aware, expose in general the imposter, trickster, people who just haven�t got the honour, acumen, or respect in Martial Arts tuition. Not that I am on a witch hunt, I�m just a little upset about the way some people, I won�t honour them by calling them instructors, manipulate the Martial Arts to their own ends.
There is nothing wrong with making a living, but hey guys and girls, give an honest day�s work for an honest day�s pay! Don�t rip people off, give them a fair deal. The Martial Arts are a precious commodity, if we restrict its learning or undo its originality we expose it to those more business opportune, and who inevitable re-structure its technicality. We organise its format, we substantiate a better life for ourselves and that�s not necessarily a bad thing, but then we get greedy.
How many people started Martial Arts to make money? Not many but somehow we lose our way. We can be blinded by the glisten of gold. We get the taste and we can never have enough of it, it becomes our only reason for involvement in the Martial Arts and then we become a law unto ourselves, the money becomes secondary, the power to do what we like becomes all consuming. After all we are the new �Messiahs�, aren�t we? We say, you can�t go there, you can�t learn that, you can�t be what you really want to be. You are mine, I�ve taught you all along, you owe me.
Greed and power are mainstay syndromes in the Martial Arts today, through my own past and more recent experiences I�ve learned such things, and had dishonour shown me in particular. It�s not a sweet taste. I�ve had the loyal become disloyal, so-called friends become bad-mouthed enemies. I ponder, have I done these people so wrong? I say no, the Martial Arts may�ve helped hone them, the rest, even a small thing like respect and loyalty was down to them.
We live in a world that gets crazier and crazier by the minute. Where is the etiquette? Where is the honour that seemed so abundant when I first began the Martial Arts? The art of the mushroom is quite simple. Instructors sometimes encase their students in a protective wrapper, training against the outside world. The good ones do it amiably, out of not wanting their students to be misused, misled or even confused. I understand that and I tip my hat to them. Our students, their minds, their bodies are our most precious commodity, we must treat them with respect. Though there are others, and you know who I mean, yes I�m talking about you, who encase and morally entrap the students in their own sick, mixed up world holding them by morally obligating them, pressuring them into staying, bamboozling them into believing that their style is the best, and not, I repeat not, giving any real substantiate reasons why. You people are the mushroom leaders, the bad politicians that couldn�t care less about anyone but yourselves. Your thirst for power increases alongside your greed to possess more and more trinkets. Why keep good people in the dark and feed them manure. Advise them, don�t allow our people to fall into the grabbing arms of such pretenders. How will you know? Well hey, I�m making you aware for a start. If an instructor is bonafide they�ll teach you, if you question them they�ll answer you, if you want to learn something new somewhere else, they may advise you not to, but question that and ask why, look for a good enough answer and reason it. If they are good at Martial Arts, you�ll stay anyway, if they are greed and power managers you'll see right through them. Don�t get me wrong, not all instructors are this way only a small but growing minority. Don�t become a mushroom, be loyal for the right reasons not the wrong ones. Have I the right?